Deck 12: Measuring and Managing Service Delivery

Question 1

A good service guarantee does not have to be easy to use if it is truly focused on the guest's needs.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

A process strategy is a means of comparing what is happening against what is supposed to happen.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

MBWA stands for Management Being Watchful Always.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

Most guests fill out a comment card before leaving the service location.

Question 5

To try to encourage feedback, some companies offer coupons and prizes.

Question 6

Mystery shoppers are inexpensive and a useful tool.

Question 7

Knowing what errors are being made is a key to providing excellent service.

Question 8

Some hotels actually offer an unconditional 100 percent satisfaction guarantee.

Question 9

SERVQUAL assesses guest perceptions, not objective reality.

Question 10

The good organizations pick one primary method for measuring quality.

Question 11

A large challenge of line employees assessing guest experiences is that all employees must feel safe in reporting the errors they caused.

Question 12

Simplicity and low cost are two advantages of the MBWA assessment technique.

Question 13

Employers should improvise questions when asking guests about their experience because guests are always motivated to tell the whole truth.

Question 14

"Walking the front" means the servers watch the guest experience first-hand.

Question 15

The comment cards returned to a restaurant are particularly valuable because they represent a true random sample.

Question 16

A service guarantee is an internal goal of service set for employees and not communicated to the guest.

Question 17

Servers should be given the comment cards that have negative comments about their performance.

Question 18

Measuring what guests think about a guest experience is easy for an experienced organization.

Question 19

In the critical incident technique, the moments in the guest experience are classified as dissatisfiers, neutral, or satisfiers.

Question 20

A major advantage of mystery shoppers is the relatively large sample on which reports are based.

Question 21

The advantage of process strategies is that they can catch the service error right after it occurs and can immediately take action so it does not affect the next guest.

Question 22

Which of the following is an advantage of comment cards?

A) They force guests to be objective.
B) Self-selected respondents are more likely to be honest.
C) They enable quick response to failure.
D) They are relatively easy to use.

Question 23

SERVQUAL measures the way customers perceive the quality of the service experiences in which five categories?

A) reliability, sympathy, focus, help, and kindness
B) reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, and tangibles
C) care, speed, focus, kindness, and compensation
D) help, speed, feedback, focus, and care

Question 24

Focus groups are very helpful in

A) providing statistically valid data on service failures
B) itemizing the costs of gathering information about service failures
C) minimizing guest inconvenience
D) providing qualitative information that might otherwise be unavailable

Question 25

Generally speaking, the parts of the guest experience that are not measured are typically unmanaged.

Question 26

A primary advantage of management observation for measuring service quality is

A) The observational results have statistical validity.
B) It is simple and inexpensive.
C) Employees perform better when they know they are being observed.
D) Employees can be monitored without their knowledge.

Question 27

SERVQUAL is

A) an instrument designed to evaluate service quality
B) a leading mystery-shopping organization
C) a leading budget motel chain
D) a method to make all service equal

Question 28

The best time for a telephone survey is dinner time on Friday night because families are most apt to be home.

Question 29

Which of the following is a major advantage of mystery shoppers?

A) They are inexpensive.
B) Their findings have statistical reliability.
C) They are unbiased and without expectations.
D) They observe and report on service delivery from up close.

Question 30

The best time to find out about service failures is

A) when the mystery shopper reports them
B) when the matrix system informs you
C) when you receive e-mail failure reports from employees
D) as soon after they happen as possible

Question 31

Like comment cards, call-in feedback does not produce enough feedback to be considered reliable.

Question 32

Knowing what has failed not what has gone right is what is needed to reassess service.

Question 33

Which of the following is an advantage of a guarantee for the organization?

A) It forces managers to supervise the guest experience carefully.
B) It forces employees to worry about the guest experience.
C) It pinpoints exactly where the service failed.
D) It saves the organization money.

Question 34

Which evaluation technique is more apt to reveal to organizational management in a timely manner that a server has given some guests permission to smoke in a no-smoking section?

A) guest comment card
B) MBWA
C) structured interview
D) focus group

Question 35

An advantage of the mail survey is

A) very high response rates
B) Guests remember more upon reflection at home.
C) convenience to the guest
D) It provides evidence of the organization's interest in guest opinions.

Question 36

Comment cards the easiest and cheapest form of data collection and allow for managers to analyze the data and fix service delivery service problems.

Question 37

Structured guest interviews are very detailed, offer excellent numerical data, and are relatively cheap.

Question 38

Mystery shoppers are always trained observers who sporadically sample the service and its delivery.

Question 39

Job performance standards are

A) performance expectations for each major duty associated with employees' jobs
B) employees' personal expectations for themselves
C) the organization's long-term goals
D) rules to be followed for employee behavior on the job

Question 40

When deciding which quality assessment method should be used, companies should consider who should collect and interpret the data.

Question 41

The best evaluators are

A) mystery shoppers
B) trained managers
C) the guests
D) observant servers

Question 42

Miguel is working for the hotel. He normally works the front desk, but his job today is to simply walk around the hotel concentrating on the lobby asking hotel guests how their stay is. Another term for this persons job function on this day is?

A) Lounge Leopard
B) Lobby Lizard
C) Pesky Pete
D) Nagging Nanny

Question 43

Service standards in hospitality are equivalent to

A) quality control standards in manufacturing
B) neatness standards in retail
C) quality inspection in construction
D) engagement standards in the amusement park entertainment

Question 44

If 95 percent of an organization's guests do not fill out comment cards, the organization can assume that these guests had what reaction to the service?

A) happy
B) unhappy
C) indifferent
D) can't assume anything